The Emergence of Mobi

Gary Klingsheim of Site Reference says it’s a small world, after all; but with the emergence of Mobi -- a Top-Level Domain (TLD) in the domain -- it's even smaller. In fact, the whole world, at least the World Wide Web, will now fit on a cell phone screen. Approved by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in July 2005, the Mobi domain is managed by a group of technology firms known as the mTLD global registry. Executives from Google, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Microsoft, Visa and other tech and communications firms serve on mTLD's board of directors. There are many competing interests, as well as convergent ones, and time will tell if the consortium can hammer out realistic standards and steer the development of this new "mobile space." From "who" to "what" Those are the firms behind the Mobi domain name, but besides being an obvious abbreviation of "mobile," what else makes it special? The first Mobi domains were granted in September 2006, as mTLD worked with the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) to develop standards for mobile content and delivery. Mobi domains do not require the use of any particular technology, but there are general standards for creating user experiences "consistent with the guidelines" and specially optimized for cell phones and other mobile Web devices. The mTLD group distributes a free tool, named "Ready.mobi," for determining a Web site's mobile readiness. A quick page analysis will result in a Ready score between 1 and 5, depending on how well Mobi's best practices were implemented. Tailoring sites to particular domains, however, is considered by many to be a breach of the "principles of device independence." There are other ways to tailor content to mobile devices without establishing and enforcing a new TLD -- hostnames within an existing domain, subdomains, "negotiated content," CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) -- but sometimes the top-down method does work best. Similar services There are other tech solutions that can provide very Mobi-like features, such as the Opera Mobile "microbrowser" which uses its Small Screen Rendering Technique to convert Web sites on the fly. However, because the browser still has to download the whole Web page, images and all, displaying a converted page may not get you "flying" very fast. You will also be paying for the connection, meaning the process is expensive in money as well as time. The W3C is working on new authoring languages, one of which is DIAL (Device Independent Authoring Language), to help create Web sites usable across the huge range of mobile devices available now, as well as even more powerful new ones coming soon. There are already some "adaptation solutions" in use that leverage DIAL and similar tools to build sites that can be used with the Mobi domain names. Other open source initiatives are approaching the problem from another direction, amassing a huge database of browser ID strings. The wrap-up Although the control is still loose, Mobi sites are required to be optimized for viewing (and actual use) on mobile phones. All users want is the same good content they get online in any other fashion. Sites have to be optimized for the particular, and ever-changing, abilities and drawbacks of these mobile units, which means contending with small screens, limited or awkward input/output methods, the presence of embedded sensors (accelerometers, GPS, touchscreens, etc.) and the often unpredictable "human factors." People want immediacy in their Web experience, and want it in the context of the mobile environment -- meaning they want to get what they need without thinking too hard, since they're not at a desk with time to spare. They are more likely walking into a restaurant and want to check the reviews of the blue plate special. Right now, Web site owners are hard at work retrofitting content, making changes and even creating separate sites for mobile as opposed to desktop-based use. From the perspective of content providers, maintaining separate sites represents more work, twice the trouble and a lot of unnecessary spending. Watch for the Mobi domain to be assimilated, like a new Borg, into the Web 3.0 universe as faster, better "re-purposing algorithms" tailor single Web pages for viewing on multiple devices. There is too much waste involved in keeping things separate. Convergence doesn't just refer to TVs turning into PCs. It means media will be adapted to whatever device you are using to read, play or watch it. Exciting times are ahead!